It's funny that the most well-regarded films, the "classics of world cinema", are the ones which I most fervently avoid. The fear of disappointment in the face of excess hype; the distrust of the popular consensus; the experience of finding many "great films" to be far from that: many are the reasons I was hesitant approaching Vals im Bashir.
An animated documentary, Vals im Bashir follows director Ari Folman's journey to discover just what happened to him during the Lebanon war in 1982, his mind having almost entirely repressed his memories. Speaking to marginally fictionalised versions of his then comrades, he comes to reconstruct both their stories and his, and rediscovers the horror of war.
An interesting case in terms of its form alone, Vals im Bashir appears to have given rise to a plethora of questions regarding documentary film, and the surprisingly thin line which separates it from pure fiction. Folman's story is certainly a true one, his quest to uncover his trauma-hidden past in no way staged, but simply reconstructed and relived. His characters may not be exact replicas of their real-world counterparts, but they serve only to protect identity and maintain anonymity. The combination of documentary and animation is worthy of comment too, a mixture I'd not encountered before, and one I suspect is all too rare. What it achieves is to allow the narrator, and the audience with him, wild flights of fantasy, dream sequences, and fantastical visions of the past that combine to create a fully informed picture of the issue at hand. With the animation, Folman pulls us into the subject much more firmly than he would be able to were this a traditional talking head documentary format. We are able to experience the scenes of war, to see the described scenarios played out in a way which, though obviously fictionalised, is scarily realistic. The aforementioned flights of fantasy never fly too far from the horror on the ground, a swim with a gigantic mermaid interrupted by a missile raid, the dream of escaping to anywhere around the globe disturbed by the realisation that the airport is a hollow shell of what it once was. There is a lingering lugubriousness to the film, a resounding sorrow that builds to a tragic and terrifying crescendo of buried emotion. The questions of guilt and responsibility are the film's primary concerns, and ones which are explored in a subtle but comprehensive manner. Folman uncovers his own guilt as he does that of his nation, the repression not his alone. The film's slow atmosphere, making us feel as though we are soldiers wading through the mud to some eventually terrible destination, is entirely down to the music. The score's role is indescribably important to this film, the mournfulness it contributes paramount to our eventual emotional fatigue. Expect to be fully drained, wearied, and burned out by the time the credits arrive, the pacing combining with the deathly tone to assure the maximum impact is inflicted upon us. The final moments of the film, wherein we are exposed to newsreel footage of what we have just witnessed unfold, utilises the film's interplay between fact and fiction, informing us that this is concrete reality, that there is no escape, and that these horrors can never be undone.
Among the most emotionally affecting, thought-engaging, draining, and impactful films I have ever sat through, Vals im Bashir transcends the limitations of its combined media to present us with perhaps the most effective war film that has yet graced the screen. Playing with reality and our perception thereof but never straying from it, it employs an atmosphere of impending tragedy, a score to accompany it beautifully, and effulgently darkened palettes to present the best argument for peace you are ever likely to find.
An animated documentary, Vals im Bashir follows director Ari Folman's journey to discover just what happened to him during the Lebanon war in 1982, his mind having almost entirely repressed his memories. Speaking to marginally fictionalised versions of his then comrades, he comes to reconstruct both their stories and his, and rediscovers the horror of war.
An interesting case in terms of its form alone, Vals im Bashir appears to have given rise to a plethora of questions regarding documentary film, and the surprisingly thin line which separates it from pure fiction. Folman's story is certainly a true one, his quest to uncover his trauma-hidden past in no way staged, but simply reconstructed and relived. His characters may not be exact replicas of their real-world counterparts, but they serve only to protect identity and maintain anonymity. The combination of documentary and animation is worthy of comment too, a mixture I'd not encountered before, and one I suspect is all too rare. What it achieves is to allow the narrator, and the audience with him, wild flights of fantasy, dream sequences, and fantastical visions of the past that combine to create a fully informed picture of the issue at hand. With the animation, Folman pulls us into the subject much more firmly than he would be able to were this a traditional talking head documentary format. We are able to experience the scenes of war, to see the described scenarios played out in a way which, though obviously fictionalised, is scarily realistic. The aforementioned flights of fantasy never fly too far from the horror on the ground, a swim with a gigantic mermaid interrupted by a missile raid, the dream of escaping to anywhere around the globe disturbed by the realisation that the airport is a hollow shell of what it once was. There is a lingering lugubriousness to the film, a resounding sorrow that builds to a tragic and terrifying crescendo of buried emotion. The questions of guilt and responsibility are the film's primary concerns, and ones which are explored in a subtle but comprehensive manner. Folman uncovers his own guilt as he does that of his nation, the repression not his alone. The film's slow atmosphere, making us feel as though we are soldiers wading through the mud to some eventually terrible destination, is entirely down to the music. The score's role is indescribably important to this film, the mournfulness it contributes paramount to our eventual emotional fatigue. Expect to be fully drained, wearied, and burned out by the time the credits arrive, the pacing combining with the deathly tone to assure the maximum impact is inflicted upon us. The final moments of the film, wherein we are exposed to newsreel footage of what we have just witnessed unfold, utilises the film's interplay between fact and fiction, informing us that this is concrete reality, that there is no escape, and that these horrors can never be undone.
Among the most emotionally affecting, thought-engaging, draining, and impactful films I have ever sat through, Vals im Bashir transcends the limitations of its combined media to present us with perhaps the most effective war film that has yet graced the screen. Playing with reality and our perception thereof but never straying from it, it employs an atmosphere of impending tragedy, a score to accompany it beautifully, and effulgently darkened palettes to present the best argument for peace you are ever likely to find.